At the time of
my first
review of the original gumstix product, the gumstix waysmall
200X (ws200x), it contained the versions of what the company since has
renamed the Basix FFMC. One version was available with Bluetooth
connectivity and one without. The gumstix company prefers to refer to
its modules as Full Function Miniature Computers (FFMC), principally
because of the move toward the mother/daughter card concept. In the
first review, I explored the strengths and weaknesses of these products.
Here, I revisit the issues discussed in the first review and provide a
status update.

For this review, I received a power supply, the new connex 400g FFMC and
several daughter boards. Because so many new boards are available and
there is so much material to cover dealing with this, this review is
divided into a couple of parts. This time we discuss the gumstix connex 400g,
the etherstix daughterboard and finally the waysmall daughterboard.

Figure 1. The connex 400g

Figure 2. The etherstix Daughterboard

Figure 3. The waysmall Daughterboard

Original Concerns

During the course of writing the original review, I identified three
primary concerns with the gumstix products:

No easy I/O line access

Evolving documentation and product
line

Fragile Bluetooth antenna connector

The concern about I/O lines primarily was directed at the waysmall configuration of the
gumstix FFMC. In many ways, the waysmall is an excellent development
platform, as it is better protected from the environment than is the
naked gumstix FFMC. However, the waysmall did not allow for any access to the
I/O lines. The only real solution to this concern was a substantial
hardware change. On the gumstix basix FFMC, the difficulty lies in the fact
that all I/O access is handled through the 60-pin Hirose I/O header. Although the
Hirose connector was a step forward in the stability of the physical connection,
actual access to the I/O was diminished somewhat. The Hirose essentially required the user
to design a daughterboard and surface-mount connections to the female
Hirose on the motherboard. Consequently, this becomes a costly
investment for a hobbyist who simply wants to experiment with the gumstix FFMC.

Although gumstix has not chosen to make this change on the waysmall,
the company has provided a solution to the I/O access problem by releasing a
breakout daughterboard, which I will discuss in a later article. All in all,
the I/O access deficiency has been resolved, because the gumstix FFMC
principally is an embedded tool. Consequently, as long as a
cost-effective I/O access option is available--meaning no roll-your-own
breakout boards--the need is satisfied.

In terms of the documentation, the principle criticism essentially was
the lack of documentation and the draft nature of what was available.
The original manual was a rough introductory document. Now, however, the
principle documentation is available
on-line. It
provides a lot of useful tools to generate what essentially are
custom manuals. In addition to the manuals, forums, FAQs and many other
resources are available through the wiki. Some issues still exist in
terms of the generated manuals skipping some key point, such as schematics.
Overall, though, it is an excellent way to get the specific information you require.

The rapid development of the gumstix line is both a strength and weakness
of the company's products. To its credit, the company appears to be maintaining
backward compatibility wherever possible. One must keep in mind,
however, that if you are designing a particular product line, the current
model may change quickly. For example, look for the transition to a newer
XScale PXA processor to happen sometime in 2005.

With regards to the fragile Bluetooth antenna connector, this is the only
issue yet to be addressed in full. At the time of my first review, there was some
discussion with gumstix about the fragility of the Bluetooth antenna.
The company acknowledged the problem and was considering what options were
available. An integrated antenna on the gumstix motherboard would take up a
great deal of precious real estate, but this option is under consideration if
it can be integrated with a Wi-Fi antenna.

As Linux continues to play an ever increasing role in corporate data centers and institutions, ensuring the integrity and protection of these systems must be a priority. With 60% of the world's websites and an increasing share of organization's mission-critical workloads running on Linux, failing to stop malware and other advanced threats on Linux can increasingly impact an organization's reputation and bottom line.

Most companies incorporate backup procedures for critical data, which can be restored quickly if a loss occurs. However, fewer companies are prepared for catastrophic system failures, in which they lose all data, the entire operating system, applications, settings, patches and more, reducing their system(s) to “bare metal.” After all, before data can be restored to a system, there must be a system to restore it to.

In this one hour webinar, learn how to enhance your existing backup strategies for better disaster recovery preparedness using Storix System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin), a highly flexible bare-metal recovery solution for UNIX and Linux systems.